Women's Accessories
Buy and sell women’s accessories in Costa Rica.
Every September the cotton chonete comes out of the wardrobe for the 15th, and it is still made in Costa Rican workshops rather than shipped in. It sits here beside the pieces worn the rest of the year, new and pre-owned: a wide straw brim for the beach at Sámara, lentes de sol that have to carry a UV400 mark to be worth wearing, a Casio or a Fossil on the wrist, and gold and silver in the jewelry box. Nothing here is bulky, so a handover over coffee is easy to arrange; the care goes into checking the stamp, the lens or the movement before you pay.
The chonete, the straw sun hat and the cap:
three hats that do three different jobs. The chonete is the soft, round-crowned hat of the Costa Rican countryside, and San Carlos counts it among its canton symbols. The traditional ones are cotton canvas; plenty sold today are acrylic or polyester, which looks the same in a photo and feels much hotter by noon. A wide straw brim is the one that actually shades your face and neck at the beach, and a cap is for the gym and the bus. Hats are sized by head circumference in centimetres, and straw will not stretch, so measure before you agree to anything. On a used straw hat, run your eye along any fold in the brim: crushed straw cracks there and never recovers, while a sweat-marked band is only cosmetic. There is more on shapes and sizing in women’s hats.
Lentes de sol and the marks inside the left arm:
the label that matters is UV400. A dark lens without it makes your pupils open wider and lets more ultraviolet into the eye, not less. Polarised lenses cut the glare off a wet road or the sea, though they can black out a phone or a dashboard screen at some angles. Ray-Ban is the pair you will see copied most. A genuine one has a model number starting with RB printed inside the left arm, a small RB etched into the left lens near the hinge, and on polarised models a P beside the logo. Hold a pair sold as polarised in front of a phone screen and turn it slowly; the screen should go dark. Frames, lens colours and fit are covered in women’s sunglasses.
A Casio, a Fossil and what a used watch is worth:
a women’s Casio analogue costs around ₡25,000 new and runs for years on one battery. Fossil and Michael Kors fashion watches sit around ₡75,000 to ₡100,000, and most of that pays for the name and the case: inside is a quartz movement much like the one in a far cheaper watch. That is why a used fashion watch rarely gets near its tag, and why you should pay for condition rather than the logo. An automatic from Seiko or Citizen holds its value better, because there the movement is what you bought. Ask whether it is running before you set off. A dead battery left inside a quartz watch can leak and corrode the movement, so “it only needs a battery” deserves a test at a relojería before money changes hands. Check the edge of the crystal for chips, and on a metal bracelet ask for the links taken out when it was sized; without them it only fits a wrist as slim as the last owner’s. Fossil and Michael Kors engrave the model number on the caseback, and searching it should bring up the same dial and bracelet as the photos. Brands and movements are compared in women’s watches.
Selling a chonete in August, or a watch with its spare links:
for the chonete, timing is most of the sale. Demand arrives in the weeks before 15 September, when families dress children for the Independence Day parades, and a listing that goes up in August meets it. Give the head size and say whether it is cotton or acrylic. For sunglasses, photograph the inside of the left arm and the lens etching against the light, and mention the case. For a watch, say when the battery was last changed, include the spare links and show the caseback. Rings, chains and earrings belong in women’s jewelry, where buyers search by karat and weight. Someone driving in from Atenas for a watch will want it on her wrist and the second hand moving before she pays, so meet somewhere with daylight.